Alberto Fujimori: Human Rights Watch pronounces on restitution of his pardon

After the Peruvian Constitutional Court declared habeas corpus to be founded, which restored the effects of the pardon of former President Alberto Fujimori, awarded by Pedro Pablo Kuczynski in 2017, members of the non-governmental human rights organization Human Rights Watch criticized the ruling, considering that the presidential grace given to the former president could be part of a fraud.

“I am not opposed to humanitarian pardons for the seriously ill, including those convicted of crimes against humanity. But the benefit cannot be based on fraud. The Inter-American Court of Human Rights must intervene again and verify whether the release is justified and whether its ruling was respected,” José Miguel Vivanco, director of the Division of Americas of Human Rights Watch.

The message was shared by the president of the Peruvian Council of Ministers, Aníbal Torres, who also called the TC's ruling a “tremendous mistake.”

Meanwhile, Juan Pappier, a researcher in the Americas Division of Human Rights Watch, noted that his organization is “monitoring efforts to free Fujimori, through a habeas corpus.”

“The Constitutional Court of Peru must respect due process, the rights of victims and the standards set forth by the Inter-American Court in the decision 'La Cantuta' on 'humanitarian pardon',” he said.

Alberto Fujimori was sentenced to 25 years in prison by the Special Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice on April 7, 2009, when he was found to be the immediate perpetrator of the crimes of qualified homicide, murder, serious injury and kidnapping. Fujimori would have served his sentence in 2032.

QUESTIONED PARDON

It should be noted that the pardon granted to Alberto Fujimori in December 2017 is the subject of several questions, since it is presumed that it would have been part of a negotiation between then-President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski (PPK), who at that time faced a motion for presidential vacancy in Congress, and a group of Fujimorist congressmen led by Kenji Fujimori (son of Alberto Fujimori) to vote against PPK's vacancy.

In addition, in March 2018, another group of MPs from Fuerza Popular, who supported Keiko Fujimori (daughter of Alberto Fujimori and candidate who lost to PPK in the 2016 elections), released videos recording the alleged negotiation between Kenji Fujimori and congressmen from his bench to vote against Kuczynski's vacancy in exchange for gifts.

That same month, PPK resigned from the presidency on a new vacancy motion from which it would hardly be saved and after the revelation of the videos.

I COULD GO BACK TO PRISON

Carlos Rivera, lawyer for the victims of the massacres in Barrios Altos and La Cantuta, announced that they would once again go to the Inter-American Court to seek justice and that Fujimori will return to prison.

Rivera considered that the Inter-American Court's ruling could take less time than that issued in May 2018, when it ordered that the Peruvian State review the legality of the pardon granted to Fujimori in 2017, prompting the former president to return to prison in October 2018.

The counsel considered that, in this case, the Inter-American Court could issue a new judgment within three months. “In the previous judgment the Court was delayed five months (...) In the case of a matter on which the Court has already decided, the deadlines will be shorter,” he told a local channel.

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